Twitter Inc.
promoted its chief know-how officer to chief govt earlier this week. Consultants say such a transfer is uncommon, though know-how abilities more and more are valued within the nook workplace.
Twitter CTO
Parag Agrawal
on Monday stepped into CEO
Jack Dorsey’s
sneakers when the social-media firm introduced the co-founder’s departure.
CTOs and chief info officers at the moment are extra seen inside the C-Suite as know-how turns into an more and more essential a part of companies. Nonetheless, they should have the precise mixture of character, management abilities, and expertise earlier than they will grasp the highest spot—making the direct transition from tech chief to CEO unusual.
“Going immediately from CTO to CEO is a fairly dramatic change on the floor,” says Tim Crawford, CIO strategic adviser at Los Angeles-based advisory agency AVOA. “These two, not less than traditionally, have tended to be very totally different. Very totally different priorities, very totally different ability units and focus areas.”
The transition sometimes is smart inside tech firms when the tech chief has sufficient expertise with different points of the enterprise and the precise management abilities head up the corporate, Mr. Crawford mentioned.
In an electronic mail that Mr. Dorsey posted to his Twitter account Monday, he known as Mr. Agrawal “curious, probing, rational, inventive, demanding, self-aware, and humble.” He added: “He’s been my alternative for a while given how deeply he understands the corporate and its wants.”
Mr. Agrawal joined Twitter in 2011 as a software program engineer and have become CTO in 2017. He holds a PhD in laptop science from Stanford College and a bachelor’s diploma from the Indian Institute of Expertise, Bombay, in line with his bio on Twitter’s web site.
Ray Wang, founder and principal analyst for Constellation Analysis Inc., mentioned Mr. Agrawal has confirmed himself in numerous components of the enterprise, together with fixing Twitter’s promoting platform and serving to launch a bunch of recent paid providers.
“He’s proven that he can truly do this with the staff that they’ve, and that’s essential,” says Mr. Wang.
The transition from CTO to CEO has some precedent. Verizon Communications Inc. Chairman and CEO
Hans Vestberg
was the corporate’s chief know-how officer till his 2018 promotion.
However it’s extra frequent for a CTO or CIO to go onto an middleman position, resembling chief working officer, earlier than changing into CEO, consultants say.
In a 2019 research by govt search agency
Korn Ferry,
51% of know-how officers surveyed mentioned they wished to be a CEO throughout their profession. However solely 12% mentioned it was the position they wished subsequent.
Gerry McNamara, vice chairman of Korn Ferry’s know-how officers apply, says know-how officers know they want extra expertise to be able to run an organization. Particularly essential for an incoming CEO is expertise with profit-and-loss tasks, he mentioned.
Intel Corp. CEO
Pat Gelsinger
was the chipmaker’s CTO between 2000 and 2005 earlier than changing into president and COO of EMC Corp. He then turned CEO of VMware Inc. in 2012. He returned to Intel as CEO in 2021.
Satya Nadella,
Microsoft Corp.’s chief govt, beforehand held management roles on each the enterprise and the buyer aspect of the enterprise, together with vice chairman of the Microsoft Enterprise Division and govt vice chairman of Microsoft’s cloud and enterprise group.
Related profession paths are being traversed extra steadily at tech firms, in line with John Keller, a managing director at govt search and management consulting agency Raines Worldwide. He says that’s as a result of these tech chiefs are sometimes “proper within the middle of the place an organization must go.”
“You’re going to be seeing increasingly more of this occurring” in line with Mr. Keller.
Exterior of know-how firms, the journey from tech chief to chief govt is much less frequent, however nonetheless happens.
Steve Squeri,
the chairman and CEO of American Categorical Co., served as the corporate’s CIO from 2005-2009. He then turned the group president of worldwide providers and vice chairman, earlier than taking the reins as CEO in 2018.
Greg Carmichael
was CIO of Fifth Third Bancorp earlier than changing into COO and ultimately CEO in 2015.
Transitions resembling these have gotten extra believable as tech performs an more and more very important position in different varieties of companies, in line with Emmeline Kuhn, who co-leads the operations and knowledge know-how apply at govt search agency Leathwaite.
“Expertise is the core of each enterprise going ahead,” Ms. Kuhn mentioned.
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